IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/9152.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Old Man and the SNI: A review of advance and adversity in Hueting's research in sustainable national income (SNI), economic growth and the new scarcity from the environment

Author

Listed:
  • Colignatus, Thomas

Abstract

Roefie Hueting (1929), recently turned 78 years of age, has been working on the subject of economics and the environment since around 1965. Seminal results are his notion of environmental functions (WWF, 1969), his Ph.D. thesis “New Scarcity and Economic Growth. More welfare through less production ?” (1974), the definition of (environmentally) sustainable national income (eSNI, UNEP/Worldbank 1989), the eSNI methodology (CBS Statistics Netherlands 1992) and his contributions to the 1999 Hueting Congress (presentation and rejoinders, 2001bc). The figure of national income NI gives production while the figure of eSNI gives the production level that maintains the availability for future generations of the vital environmental functions. For many economists, the current focus is on climate change but the ecological challenge is much wider and more fundamental, see also the Convention on Biological Diversity, Bonn 2008. The figure for eSNI still isn’t included in the system of national accounts (SNA) which means that current statistical reporting on national income and economic growth provides incomplete information to policy makers and the general public. With the dictum “What you measure is what you get”, we currently get “economic growth” that works against sustainability. This review provides a reflection on advance and adversity in 40 years of Hueting’s research in a world that only slowly recognizes the global environmental problem. How do governments decide under risk, how do they grow aware of that very risk, what is the role of the national statistical offices in providing information on that risk, especially when that risk concerns survival for large sections of the planet ? The reflection provides insights that themselves are useful for our understanding of the political economy of research on issues that are politically sensitive.

Suggested Citation

  • Colignatus, Thomas, 2008. "The Old Man and the SNI: A review of advance and adversity in Hueting's research in sustainable national income (SNI), economic growth and the new scarcity from the environment," MPRA Paper 9152, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:9152
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/9152/1/MPRA_paper_9152.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/9431/2/MPRA_paper_9431.pdf
    File Function: revised version
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/12690/1/MPRA_paper_12690.pdf
    File Function: revised version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hueting, Roefie & Reijnders, Lucas & de Boer, Bart & Lambooy, Jan & Jansen, Huib, 1998. "The concept of environmental function and its valuation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 31-35, April.
    2. Hueting, Roefie & Reijnders, Lucas, 2004. "Broad sustainability contra sustainability: the proper construction of sustainability indicators," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3-4), pages 249-260, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Colignatus, Thomas, 2008. "On the political economy of environmental survival versus collapse. Clarifying the work done by Tinbergen & Hueting vis-à-vis Weitzman, Nordhaus and Stern," MPRA Paper 10001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Colignatus, Thomas, 2020. "Forum Theory & A National Assembly of Science and Learning," MPRA Paper 98568, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 09 Feb 2020.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:eee:ecoser:v:43:y:2020:i:c:s221204162030036x is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Colignatus, Thomas, 2019. "National Accounts in the Anthropocene: Hueting’s environmental functions and environmentally Sustainable National Income: translation and relevance for ecosystem services," MPRA Paper 95106, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 11 Jul 2019.
    3. Oliver Fromm, 2000. "Ecological Structure and Functions of Biodiversity as Elements of Its Total Economic Value," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 16(3), pages 303-328, July.
    4. Ozgur Isil & Michael T. Hernke, 2017. "The Triple Bottom Line: A Critical Review from a Transdisciplinary Perspective," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(8), pages 1235-1251, December.
    5. Comte, Adrien & Sylvie Campagne, C. & Lange, Sabine & Bruzón, Adrián García & Hein, Lars & Santos-Martín, Fernando & Levrel, Harold, 2022. "Ecosystem accounting: Past scientific developments and future challenges," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    6. Gowdy, John M. & Ferreri Carbonell, Ada, 1999. "Toward consilience between biology and economics: the contribution of Ecological Economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 337-348, June.
    7. Sinden, John Alfred & Griffith, Garry, 2007. "Combining economic and ecological arguments to value the environmental gains from control of 35 weeds in Australia," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2-3), pages 396-408, March.
    8. James Keirstead & Matt Leach, 2008. "Bridging the gaps between theory and practice: a service niche approach to urban sustainability indicators," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(5), pages 329-340.
    9. Burgherr, Peter & Hirschberg, Stefan, 2014. "Comparative risk assessment of severe accidents in the energy sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(S1), pages 45-56.
    10. Van Passel, Steven, 2008. "Assessing farm sustainability with value oriented methods," 2008 International Congress, August 26-29, 2008, Ghent, Belgium 44141, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    11. Peyman Babashamsi & Nur Izzi Md Yusoff & Halil Ceylan & Nor Ghani Md Nor & Hashem Salarzadeh Jenatabadi, 2016. "Sustainable Development Factors in Pavement Life-Cycle: Highway/Airport Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-21, March.
    12. Hezri, Adnan A. & Dovers, Stephen R., 2006. "Sustainability indicators, policy and governance: Issues for ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 86-99, November.
    13. Ronald R. Kumar & Peter J. Stauvermann, 2024. "Environmental Injustice: The Effects of Environmental Taxes on Income Distribution in an Oligopolistic General Equilibrium Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(10), pages 1-23, May.
    14. Buytaert, V. & Muys, B. & Devriendt, N. & Pelkmans, L. & Kretzschmar, J.G. & Samson, R., 2011. "Towards integrated sustainability assessment for energetic use of biomass: A state of the art evaluation of assessment tools," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 15(8), pages 3918-3933.
    15. Van Passel, Steven & Nevens, Frank & Mathijs, Erik & Van Huylenbroeck, Guido, 2007. "Measuring farm sustainability and explaining differences in sustainable efficiency," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 149-161, April.
    16. De Giovanni, Pietro & Esposito Vinzi, Vincenzo, 2012. "Covariance versus component-based estimations of performance in green supply chain management," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(2), pages 907-916.
    17. Guangdong Wu & Guofeng Qiang & Jian Zuo & Xianbo Zhao & Ruidong Chang, 2018. "What are the Key Indicators of Mega Sustainable Construction Projects? —A Stakeholder-Network Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-18, August.
    18. Rota, Cosimo & Reynolds, Nikolai & Zanasi, Cesare, 2012. "Collaboration and Sustainable Relationships: their Contribution to the Life Cycle Analysis in Agri-Food Supply Chains," 2012 International European Forum, February 13-17, 2012, Innsbruck-Igls, Austria 144982, International European Forum on System Dynamics and Innovation in Food Networks.
    19. Ferng, Jiun-Jiun, 2014. "Nested open systems: An important concept for applying ecological footprint analysis to sustainable development assessment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 105-111.
    20. Jun-Ya Liu & Qun-Ji Li & Gary Sigley & Hua Quan, 2021. "How Will the Cost Change after Transformation in Public Nature-Based Attractions? A Framework and Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-14, June.
    21. Michael Tlusty & Heather Tausig & Tania Taranovski & Meghan Jeans & Matt Thompson & Michelle Cho & Michael Eppling & Jason J. Clermont & Jennifer Goldstein & Elizabeth Fitzsimons, 2012. "Refocusing Seafood Sustainability as a Journey Using the Law of the Minimum," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 4(9), pages 1-13, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social welfare; national income; sustainable national income; economic growth; sustainable economic growth; sustainability; environment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q01 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General - - - Sustainable Development
    • E01 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth; Environmental Accounts
    • A11 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Role of Economics; Role of Economists

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:9152. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.